t Smisje Catherine The Great Imperial Stout

Brewed by Brouwerij De Regenboog
Style: Imperial Stout
Assebroek-Brugge, Belgium

Bottle@home. Pours a opaque brown color with a huge white head. Smokey, malty and alcohol aroma. Smoked malt and hazelnut flavor. Thin body. Bitter finish. Had better Imperial stouts.

Bottle. Redbrown body, with a small off-white head. Aroma is dark fruits (raisin), roasted malt. Flavor is Roasted malt, dark fruits. This is a very weird stout, I have never seen a stout like this.

From draught at ZBF 2008. Shady brown colour with low head. Pretty good balance of toast and chocolate in aroma, with nuts and caramel on top of that. Chocolate, caramel and biscuity flavour. Lacking in that fieryness I want in an Imperial Stout. Light toasty bitterness, and ended bit sweet. Very un-American Impy here of course.

Disappointingly dark ruby brew with a fine beige slick. Nose locust bean and lactic sweetness, faint milk chocolate, Twiglet, broccoli nuttiness,masses of alcohol once the head has subsided. Improves in the mouth with more smoke and bitterness coming through, but not enough to lay claim to anything like true stoutiness. Oak, alcohol, chiccory bitterness, herbal tonic notes (Balzams), mouldering leaves, crumble of Oxo. Quite an astingent burnt aftertaste without hops, chocolate, coffee, roasted barley.... Tastes like water (with a dram of Bovril) on top of a ’T Hofbrouwerijke Hofblues‏. Ultimately quite a difficult yeasty sipper and no stout, Imperial or otherwise.

It is red-brown with a huge, creamy head – but the color does not make me think of an Impy... The aroma has light notes of smoke, vegetables, perfumed fruit, spice, roasted malt and yeast. The flavour has hints of smoke and notes of vegetables, perfumed fruit, coriander and other spices, roasted malt and yeast – it’s a very weird impy...

Bottled. An unclear brown beer with a huge tan head. The aroma is sweet malty with notes of spices and caramel. The flavor is also sweet with notes of spices, caramel and malt, as well as light notes of wood, leading to a dry spicy finish. Thanks KimJohansen for sharing.

Brown in color with a medium sized off-white head. Aroma is of oak, ash, smoke and fried chinese dumplings. Flavor is of oak and a mild cigar.

Bottle 33 cl. Pours a dark brown with a yellowish white head and a sweet aroma of sweet berries, hops, smoke and sweet malts. The flavour has a lot of sweet malts, but also candy sugar, burned wood and dark chocolate. The finish is boozy almost like one of those supermarket "strong beers". Drinkable, but a bit of a let don.